Thoughts about Living History, especially 18th Century Middleground, and other things I've found of interest, animals, pets, music, dance, especially Contra Dance and waltz, fiber arts especially spinning and knitting, wine, beer and cordial making, pickling and gardening. Or anything else that happens along the way.

Monday, April 05, 2010

Charlie - New Dog

Wednesday, 31 March 2010 we came home with 3 dogs. We left home for our usual evening walk with our to dogs, BJ and Cadee, but came back with a new addition to our pack, Charlie. In the photo BJ is on the left, Charlie in middle and Cadee on the right.

This interesting turn of events I consider one of the ways the Universe provides for us, call it whatever you like. I've been about half thinking about getting another dog at some point. My sweet BJ is starting to get a little older now. He knows so much, and is such an awesome dog. My half-formed thoughts were that he would be able to help teach a new dog the ropes in our household. Cadee can, too, to a degree, but she is pretty submissive and somewhat afraid of other dogs, so is more likely to run away than give a puppy a correction.

In any case, I was walking with my husband, and our 2 dogs. Going past the house of one of our neighbors comes little Bella, a chihuahua, leading her pack of larger dogs. When Bella isn't out their other dogs don't even come out to the road, but she gets very excited and brings the pack out every time she is loose. I'm afraid to go past with her on the road, because I'm afraid she won't go back to her house, but instead will get hit by a car, or get one of the rest of her pack hit. So I always bring her and her pack, along with my dogs, back to their house before continuing on.

There was a new dog with them this time, a tiger striped young dog that I learned was named Charlie. He had been rescued in December when another neighbor brought him thinking it was his home. He had apparently been abused, was very shy and afraid, particularly of men, and the person who had found him couldn't keep him. So my neighbor kept him, hoping to find him a good home.

He offered him to us, because he knows we are dog people and would give him a good home. We decided to take him with us on our walk to see how he did, and to think about it. Our neighbor warned us that he hadn't been on a leash that he knew of. We clipped him up and off we went. He was unsure at first, but with our 2 just moving along happily, he caught on in a minute and did well. We liked him, but didn't want to make any decision until we had a chance to talk to our son who lives at home, since Cadee is his dog, and he takes care of them both much of the time, feeding and taking them out. They both sleep with him, too.

During our chatting and walking, it had gotten dark. We had just asked if we could take him back for our son to meet him and think about it when guess who comes walking up in the dark? Yup, there he was, coming to meet us walking. We all chatted a few minutes, letting Charlie meet our son and vice versa. In the end we decided to give him a try, agreeing that if there was any issue that we would bring him back. We didn't expect any issues, the dogs were getting along fine already.

Charlie is very sweet. Our neighbor estimates he is about 8 months old. He has a band of white around his neck into a white front, 4 white toes/feet, and the rest is brown with black marbling. Black nose and skin on his face making his face dark, with lovely dark eyes. His ears tulip, rather like a whippet. In fact, his body shape has aspects of whippet, also, with slightly arching loins, slender legs and tail. He can trot, if he goes fast enough, but he mostly seems to be pacing, which I don't recall seeing in dogs much before.

He gets along well with our other dogs, and while Hawkeye Cat isn't impressed, he hasn't been all that interested in the cat, either. He does fine with the friendly outside cat I feed, letting the cat rub up against him just fine.

Charlie is going through quite a lot of changes, as I'm sure our household is different from where he was before. Even though we had been told that he was afraid of men, we have seen very little of it. At first meeting he tucked his tail tight around my husband and son, but very quickly relaxed. Meeting another neighbor the day after we got him he tucked for a minute, but relaxed and was enjoying being petted right away. When our other son came home from university he barked at him once then did fine.

He has been learning that he has to walk next to or behind us, and not to go too far away from our side. Since I have been the one inside to do the umbilical cording (keep a leash attached to him inside, to make sure he doesn't get too many chance to do the wrong things), the others have been doing most of the walking. It is important for him to learn that he has to do the same thing with everyone.